The Obsolescence of Political Definitions (1991)

I thought we were discussing definitions from a professional source, where every word was carefully weighted for its inclusion and meaning, instead of "the common man".

In my opinion, many people who are pro-abortion or anti-abortion are not very good at it due to various things. They call them "pro-choice" and "pro-life", but often they are not real pro-choice and not real pro-life. (It is better to be a real pro-choice and a real pro-life.)

Sometimes, they attack people for having an abortion or helping someone else to do so, but that is not a real "pro-life". Sometimes, people only care about human birth, not any non-human life or how well the human life is otherwise, and that is not a real "pro-life" either. Sometimes, they will not consider if the life of both the mother and child are at risk if they do not have an abortion, so that is also not a real "pro-life".

Sometimes, people will try to bring someone to abortion clinics to force them to have an abortion even if they do not want to do, and that is not a real "pro-choice". Or, a doctor or government or someone might try to force or coerce an abortion or not abortion, and either way it is also not a real "pro-choice". If the woman wants to take the risk of having problems if it is not an abortion, that is her choice to do or not to do.

(Fortunately, not everyone is that bad at these things. But, these are examples of some of the bad stuff that results from either approach.)

There are also other issues involved when it is involved with legislation, such as: excessive spying, lack of free speech (and protests), etc. But, these can happen whether they are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. There is also the case of encouraging abortion if it is legal, and in my opinion, that would be immoral.

I do consider abortion to generally be immoral, although the alternative might be (and often is) even more immoral; for this and for other significant reasons, it should always be permitted, although should not generally be encouraged. However, people should understand the consequences, and hopefully the doctor might be able to help (if they are unbiased; unfortunately many are biased one way or other way, and I have heard of both situations).

> 6th commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

The ten commandments are not easily divided into ten, so sometimes they are numbered differently. Nevertheless, "thou shalt not kill" is one of them, whether or not it is specifically the sixth (although in my opinion, it should be considered the sixth, since it seems the most reasonable way to me to number them; this is the Orthodox way, and is unlike the Catholic way). Also, it might be better written as "thou shalt not murder".

> I don't believe in any spiritual entities - for morality I have the universe and my fellow men as the elements

I think that the philosophy of the ethics and of abortion does not require belief in spiritual entities, although many people do, I think that it is not necessary to do so. Whether or not you believe in spiritual entities is not the point, but rather, that you should not try to use them to justify things in ways that are not necessary to assert their existence like that in order to do.

> I am unwilling to tell a woman that anyone other than her has the right to make medical decisions about her body.

I agree (until the child is born, it is a part of her body, and she has the right to her own body), although, like any medical decisions, they can be informed by doctors.

> Humans will still be driven to have offspring

Yes, and it should be. However, some people don't want to, which is acceptable, and considering the current situations of the world (with too much human population), I think is good that some humans don't want to.

> it remains safest to avoid unnecessary sex (b/c of disease)

I agree, although not only because of disease (but it is also one possibility). This is better than abortion, if you do not want to have children. (However, situations are not always ideal, for various reasons, and this is one of the significant reasons why I think that abortion should be permitted even if it is not encouraged.)

Of whether or not abortion is murder, in my opinion, abortion can be murder but generally isn't. For example, if someone forcibly kills someone and her unborn child in order to gain an inheritance or something like that, then that would be murder of both the mother and the child, I think. However, something does not necessarily have to be murder to be immoral or unethical.

> Yes, I do consider being too poor for a child or not wanting a child to be selfish.

I think Quran says "do not kill your children for fear of poverty", and I agree with that, too (whether or not it has to do with "selfish" is another question, but I agree with "do not kill your children for fear of poverty" whether it is selfish or not).

Right wing issues: deport brown people, remove rights from minorities, cut essential government programs, undo social progress, give tax breaks to the rich, spend government money on military contracts.

Left wing issues: socialized healthcare, tax the wealthy, unionize workers, equity before the law, social progress.

I'm not talking about the city running the bus, I'm talking about the city charging fees for the bus.

Is it more or less socialist to ask users to pay for a government service at point of consumption?

> They are conserving what they think the world has been all along.

No, they very clearly aim to change things to conform to what they think it ought to be.

> When you define conservatism as being a status quo a single "leftish" government, makes every conservatist not a non-conservatist and the parties in power conservative.

Well, no, not quite, because the government is still a specific institution in society, not something coterminous with society itself. Those who seek to restrain the government in its attempts to expand its influence into the broader society count as conservatives; those who seek to expand that influence in pursuit of making the broader society conform to doctrinal prescriptions -- regardless of the specific content of their doctrines -- are not.

The left-right spectrum is not a dichotomy between competing dogmas, all of which seek to subjugate society to its rule. If it's anything, it's a dichotomy that celebrates dogmas at one pole and is deeply suspicious of them on the other.

Lumping religious fanatics and nationalists together with genuine conservatives is an error caused by all of these groups having a common arch-enemy during most of the past century. Their alignment is beginning to unravel now.